


You Dream Too Loud

by Stagcore



Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gore, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Vomiting, story telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:39:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stagcore/pseuds/Stagcore





	You Dream Too Loud

_The buffalo's shaggy coat stank of wet and something supernatural. The fire that burnt fiercely from its eyes made Shadow's skin sweat. He knew he should move away from the beast but his legs refused to work. Frozen with fear, he looked into the flames and the flames gazed back. Snorting heavily, making snort fly from it's great, wet nose, the buffalo took a step towards Shadow, it's hooves beating down hard on the water covered floor, the reflection staring back at the pair. After what could have either been three hours or three seconds, the buffalo took another step forward and, with a grunt, impaled Shadow on its ebony horns. Shadow had never been stabbed before, not counting the incident where he was stabbed with a pencil when he was ten, but he had witnessed stabbings in prison and heard about them on television or in movies. Shadow didn't think that any pain he had ever felt could have come nearly as close to the pain he felt in that moment. His whole body hung heavy from the horns, his flesh and ligaments and muscle tearing so excruciatingly all he could do is gasp, desperately to try and get some air back into his lungs. The only sound that could be heard in that terrible room was the dripping of what he assumed was his own blood falling into the water, turning it a muddy red. Shadow tasted blood in his mouth, metallic and heavy on his tongue. A voice spoke to him in those moments, his pain addled brain only just grasping at the meaning of the words. Not knowing if the voice was his own or the buffalo's_

_"Do you not believe yet?"_

_And with a dreadful, scraping sound, like the sound of bone scraping painfully and slowly against bone, Shadow dropped into the cold blood water. Left to heave in lungfuls of air. He turned over and spat the blood from his mouth, watching how it ran from his mouth and joined the water like a sadistic waterfall_

_"Do you not believe yet?"_

_The voice came again and this time Shadow realised that the voice came from the buffalo but sounded in his own head as if it were his own thought._

Yes, yes I believe, _Shadow thought to himself though he was certain that the buffalo understood._ I believe...

"I believe" Shadow muttered, half asleep though still heaving in gasps of air as if he was still breathing through the pain that the buffalo had gifted him with. The world receded and with a final push, Shadow cracked opened his eyes with a quiet groan. His whole body aching. The first thing he was aware of apart from how unforgiving of him his body was for falling asleep at such an uncomfortable angle against the car door. His black seat belt was cutting uncomfortably into his neck and how his legs and feet felt confined against the footrest of the Cadillac was the wait of Mr. Wednesday's hand against his shoulder. The heat from his hand was comforting and Shadow was shocked at the rare display of kindness that Wednesday displayed.

And then, as soon as the hand was placed upon him, it was removed, making Shadow's shoulder cold again.

"Where are we?" Shadow asked, his voice rough, wincing as he pushed himself off of his shoulder and squints against the bright, though overcast sky.

"You talk in your sleep, you know," Wednesday carried on as if Shadow hadn't spoken. "Didn't sound like a particularly good dream either." It had begun to rain and the fat droplets plashed against the windshield of the car rhythmically, the pitter-patter of the rain and the sound of the tires on the rough back road filled the silence, Wednesday's half-rhetorical question hung in the air.

"No, I don't suppose it was," Shadow finally said, a few moments later, the scenery had changed from fields and bushes to cracked pavement and small houses, it seemed that they had arrived at a small town. Up a head was a broken neon sign advertising a motel. 'The Red Motel' a small building, only a few stories high. Parking up, the pair got out of the car and checked in, booking two different rooms for one night only.

"Tomorrow we'll be off early, try and get some shut eye." Wednesday had commented as they got off of the elevator and headed towards their respective rooms and although his tone was his usual, rough and straight-to-the-point, there was something tender in his eyes, like he knew something Shadow did not though Shadow chalked this up to the whole 'hanging-out-with-Odin' web that he was caught up in. He appeared to know everything that was about to happen, the war between the old and the new Gods.

That night after Shadow had but down his gymbag full of clothes and toiletries in the corner of the room he went and sat at the edge of his bed. The sheets were white and reasonably clean, much better than half of the motels he had stayed in over the last few weeks though with how exhausted Shadow was he would have been happy to sleep in the back of the Cadillac for all he cared. What was it that Mr. Nancy had said? "you never say no to the opportunity to piss, to eat, or to get half an hours shut eye..." Shadow was inclined to agree with Mr. Nancy and his statement, now a days he never knew what was going to happen. The uncertainty had made residence in his bones, he had changed and he could feel it.

Pulling out a coin from his pocket to distract himself from his thoughts, Shadow practised palming it a few times. Feeling the familiar weight of it against his palm and knuckles, letting the coolness of the little coin seep into his skin and provide distraction.

That night Shadow dreamt of the Buffalo again. _It's dark hooves beat against the dirt ground, they were no longer in a dark, watery room but instead in a room of fire. Shadow looked at his hands and found that he was burning and crackling as if he was made of dry timber but felt no pain. Instead he felt a wonderful, comforting feeling deep in his chest. Like a hot bath where the water is just below scolding. The fire was extinguished abruptly, leaving him feeling frozen and empty. Like the life had left him. The buffalo was also on fire, staring at him with menacing, dead eyes and then it opened his mouth_

 _"This is how it feels, Shadow," A familiar voice came from the buffalo. It was Laura's voice as clear as a bell. "This is how it feels to be dead, Puppy." Her voice was soft and patronising and so, so,_ sad.

_"Laura?" Shadow asked the now empty room. "Laura!?" He whirled around, the buffalo had vanished as if it had turned into smoke and now the flames that had engulfed the room were slowly going out. A deep sense of dread washed over Shadow just like when he was staring down the barrel of his sentence, six years in prison and just like when he had spoken to Laura for the last time except magnified by a hundred. The fire that had once burned in his hands turned blue and in it he could see Laura's corpse, her face pale and her eyes clouded._

__

_"Puppy," Laura whined, when her mouth opened maggots and bugs crawled out of her mouth, making Shadow close his hands into fists and turn away, retching._

Shadow woke up with a start and quickly jumped out of bed and headed to the toilet where he threw up his dinner into the white, ceramic toilet bowl, there was a knock at his hotel door which he ignored, not wanting to speak to whomever was on the other side of the door doing the knocking. It could wait until the morning. However, after a moment or two, the door swung open anyways and Wednesday walked into Shadow's motel room as if it were his own. Peering round the bathroom door, all Shadow could do was to groan and rest his hot forehead against the now closed toilet bowl, not caring for the amount of germs that inhabited it.

"Shadow?" Wednesday called out as he peered into the small tiled bathroom around the opened door. 

_Go away, Wednesday_ Shadow wanted to say but instead he just forced down more bile and the image of Laura's rotting face and turned towards Wednesday, his eyes screwed shut, torn between saying something sarcastic and not saying anything at all. In the end Shadow decided on the later, accepting that it would take way too much effort.

As Wednesday guided Shadow back to bed with a comforting hand on his shoulder blades, Shadow began to think back to when he was last cared for like this. He hadn't touched Laura for three years and for a few months before that they hadn't been more psychical than holding hands or cuddling. She claimed that she was too tired or that she wasn't feeling well. Some dark part of Shadow's mind begun to question whether or not she was sleeping with Robbie in those months leading up the crime.

"Shadow, m'boy," Wednesday interrupted his thoughts. "You are thinking so loudly I can practically hear it." 

"Sorry," Shadow mumbled, too tired to do anything else except to lie on the bed. In any other situation, this would be weird and Shadow would have been eager to get Wednesday out of his room. However, the nightmares have left his vulnerable side and he welcomes the presence of another "person" even if the person in question wasn't strictly a person. _All Gods are human but not all human's are Gods..._ Shadow thought distantly, sitting down heavy on his motel bed. Wednesday was pulling up a chair from a desk that looked like it had seen it's better days one hundred years ago. 

"Go to sleep, Shadow." Wednesday said, his voice softening as he sat heavily on the crooked chair. As Shadow closed his eyes, he thought he could hear Wednesday muttering something that sounded not quiet Norwegian and not quiet any other language Shadow had ever heard before. And so Shadow slept like he had never slept in prison or after Laura was killed. Hell, he didn't think he'd ever slept like that.


End file.
